The speaker starts the Sestet by asking what ritual can be done to lessen the sorrow of those deaths. To answer this question, Owen applies three metaphors that focus on the poignant of the mourners at home. First, in line ten and eleven he compares the candles to the “holy glimmers” in the eye of boys. Instead of candles being held to send them on their way into the afterlife, the soldiers simply have the last flicker of light in each other’s eyes before they die. The image of this is that the candles are being compared to small “glimmers” of light in the eyes of the soldiers. Even though they bare a tiny, but they are holy light as well. The second metaphor comes in line twelve. The “pallor of the girls’ brows” is being compare to the pall that covers the casket. This line exposes the unjust ceremony that soldiers have or the idea of irony. The soldiers will not have pall/flag placed over their coffin and they might never have a proper burial because they will not be transported home for their own funeral. The absent pall is metaphorically replaced with the grief of girls at home. This line brings readers’ attention to the suffering caused by the death of the soldiers, not only to themselves but also to their families. Last but not least, in line fourteen “the tenderness of patient minds” becomes the flowers that adorn the soldiers’ graves. The flowers that are absent from the funeral [because there is no funeral] represent the memories that the families have. Instead of the flowers [material], the remembrance is shown in an abstract fashion [their
The speaker starts the Sestet by asking what ritual can be done to lessen the sorrow of those deaths. To answer this question, Owen applies three metaphors that focus on the poignant of the mourners at home. First, in line ten and eleven he compares the candles to the “holy glimmers” in the eye of boys. Instead of candles being held to send them on their way into the afterlife, the soldiers simply have the last flicker of light in each other’s eyes before they die. The image of this is that the candles are being compared to small “glimmers” of light in the eyes of the soldiers. Even though they bare a tiny, but they are holy light as well. The second metaphor comes in line twelve. The “pallor of the girls’ brows” is being compare to the pall that covers the casket. This line exposes the unjust ceremony that soldiers have or the idea of irony. The soldiers will not have pall/flag placed over their coffin and they might never have a proper burial because they will not be transported home for their own funeral. The absent pall is metaphorically replaced with the grief of girls at home. This line brings readers’ attention to the suffering caused by the death of the soldiers, not only to themselves but also to their families. Last but not least, in line fourteen “the tenderness of patient minds” becomes the flowers that adorn the soldiers’ graves. The flowers that are absent from the funeral [because there is no funeral] represent the memories that the families have. Instead of the flowers [material], the remembrance is shown in an abstract fashion [their